In many games, there is a virtual world or some other imagined playing space and a player of the game controls one or more player characters (herein “character,” “player character,” or “PC”). Player characters can be considered in-game representations of the controlling player; as such, all uses of the terms “player,” “user,” “entity,” and “friend” refer to the in-game player character controlled by that player, user, entity, or friend, unless context suggests otherwise. The game display can display a representation of the player character. A game engine accepts inputs from the player, determines player character actions, decides outcomes of events and presents the player with a game display illuminating what happened. In some games, there are multiple players, wherein each player controls one or more player characters.
An electronic social networking system typically operates with a social networking server or servers providing interaction between users such that a user can specify other users of the social networking system as “friends.” As should be apparent, a collection of users and the “friend” connections between users can form a social graph that can be traversed to find second, third and more remote connections between users, much like a graph of nodes connected by edges can be traversed.
Certain online gaming systems allow for users, using suitable user devices (computers, consoles, etc.) networked to each other, directly or indirectly, to play games with or against other users. Some games have features to assist users in forming a group around specific content such as World of Warcraft's™ “Looking for Group” (LFG) and “Looking for More” (LFM) features for grouping users around specific content, e.g., a specific game instance or game zone.